


Dead Men Tell No Tales

by Multifandom_damnation



Series: What is death to a man who fears no God? [1]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Character Death Fix, Childhood Memories, Crying, Doubt, Fear of Death, Frustration, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Meet the Family, Missing Persons, Panic Attacks, Realization, Reconciliation, Resurrection, Team as Family, he has two brothers CW, i baciscally brought cisco's brothers back from the dead, yes brothers is plural
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-03
Updated: 2018-10-03
Packaged: 2019-07-24 13:39:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16176206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Multifandom_damnation/pseuds/Multifandom_damnation
Summary: Barry was beside him in an instant and Cisco had his hair blown back and away from his face as Barry stopped. “Look, man, this is going to shock you. I mean, it shocked all of us as well- we don’t know what it means. We don’t know what happened. But I wanted you to hear it from me before anything else could happen. We tested them with everything we could think of and it all checks out.”“What are you talking about…?” Cisco asked but trailed off as he caught sight of the two people seated on the medical beds. Both had black hair- one shaved short, the other slightly longer and gelled upwards- and dark skin, skin the same shade as his and one was covered in more scars than the other. One was wearing an old denim jacket covered with iron-on patches and a pair of running shoes with neon green laces while the other one wore ripped up jeans and fake gold rings on his fingers. Both looked at Cisco with bright brown eyes and open faces full of hope and excitement. Both were faces Cisco knew too well. “No.” He whispered, backing away.The taller one stood slowly from the bed, awe flitting across his face like lightning in the dark. “Francisco.” He breathed.





	Dead Men Tell No Tales

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know where I learnt about Armando but I'm glad I did. I also know that this is rather unrealistic but I don't fully know how Cisco's powers work except that he's really damn powerful so I don't know why he couldn't accidentally do this when he was upset...? I don't know. I'm justifying.
> 
> JUST LET THIS POOR BOY BE HAPPY DAMN IT.

“You know, it’s a shame. I always lost Last Man Standing when we were kids, but here we are now. I finally won, huh?” Cisco placed his hand on one of the headstones, located conveniently together so nobody had to walk too far to find them in the twisting maze of grey markers and plots for the corpses of treasured relatives. He pushed the strands of hair that had been blown into his face by the force of the summer wind back behind his hear. “God, I miss you. I miss you both.”

He can only bring himself to venture here twice a year-  the day of Dante’s death and the anniversary Armando went missing. His body was never found, the CCPD officers claimed it was a murder that would never be solved and they built a grave so the family had somewhere to pay their respects. Coming more often would just be pouring salt over an already bleeding wound. He couldn’t do it.

“I’ve gotten stronger though. My time with Barry and the others has helped me learn more about myself. I’m learning more about my powers too, and how to control them.” Cisco continued, giving up on his crouch and just sitting cross-legged on the floor between his brother’s graves. All he has left of them. “Caitlin still runs away sometimes, though, when things get really tough. She’s not, you know, scared. She’s not scared of anything. But sometimes when things get difficult she finds it easier to change her hair or her clothes or her job for a while. You would have liked her Mando, she’s super smart. Sometimes I just watch her work because it’s just so amazing. Beautiful Mind and all that.”

The incessant beeping in Cisco’s pocket that he’d been trying and succeeding to ignore for the past half an hour pulled him roughly out of his thoughts and with his free hand not resting on a tombstone he reached in and raised the phone to his ear. “What? I’m kind of busy?”

 _“Cisco?”_ It was Barry, which was confusing in itself. He was expecting Iris or Caitlin. _“Where have you been?”_

“I’m running some errands.” Cisco lied, glancing back at the headstones. “Why are you calling me? It’s my day off.”

 _“We don’t have days off –“_ Cisco could hear someone berating Barry on the other end of the line and Barry quickly apologised to them before returning to the conversation. _“Iris is right- it’s an emergency. You need to come in as soon as you can.”_

Sighing, Cisco ran a hand down his face. He was so, so tired. Was it so hard to let him spend a quiet day with his big brothers? “Meta-human? Prison Break? Murder? Missing persons? The ice-cream store by Jitters is closing down?”

_“What- no, none of that.”_

“Then why are you calling me for an emergency?”

_“Cisco, you don’t understand. It’s-“_

“Right, how about this. Give me 5 minutes. Just 5 minutes and I’ll breach right over- a breach takes me a second, maybe less. I just… need to finish up here.”

 _“Fine. See you then.”_ The line cut out and Cisco placed it back in his pocket with a sigh.

Patting his brother’s headstones, Cisco smiled apologetically even though he knew his brothers couldn’t see him. “Sorry about that. I guess we’ll have to cut it short until next time. Uh, there was one more thing I wanted to tell you about though… oh right. Cynthia- I have to call her by her hero persona or else she’ll cut my head off- we broke up. I uh, I really loved this one, guys, more than anyone, but I lost her. It was a mutual decision but I don't know if it was the right decision, you know? I don’t know how to get her back but I don’t know if I should bother. I’m worried that’ll just make our relationship worse. I doubt I’ll ever see her again anyway.”

Standing, Cisco wiped the grave dirt off of his pants and put his hands into the pockets of his jacket. “Anyway, I should really go now. I’ve blown the others off enough- I’ll see you guys in a couple months, alright?”

It wasn’t like he was expecting an answer, so Cisco turned his back to the headers and watched the last of the sunset fade behind the horizon. Even at night, the wind was warm with the effects of summer and the last bright blossoms sprouting out of the earth from spring was finally fading. Bending down, Cisco picked the brightest one and tucked it behind his ear as he opened a breach to Star Labs.

The Cortex was surprisingly empty when he arrived, nothing but the bright blinking of the monitors to greet him. Casually, Cisco walked through the labs until he came upon the hushed yet frantic voices from the med bay. They stopped when they heard the clomping of Cisco’s footsteps and he could see the shaky form of shadows cast on the hallway floor in front of him from the glitching lamplight he still needs to fix.

Taking a deep breath, Cisco clapped his hands in front of him as he walked inside, expecting the worst. It was always the worst. “Right,” he announced once he entered the white room. “If we’re not in the Cortex running around for our lives, I take it the ‘emergency’ wasn’t really an emergency or someone is about to die, so, get me some gloves and let me take a look-see.”

Barry was beside him in an instant and Cisco had his hair blown back and away from his face as Barry stopped. “Look, man, this is going to shock you. I mean, it shocked all of us as well- we don’t know what it means. We don’t know what happened. But I wanted you to hear it from me before anything else could happen. We tested them with everything we could think of and it all checks out.”

“What are you talking about…?” Cisco asked but trailed off as he caught sight of the two people seated on the medical beds. Both had black hair- one shaved short, the other slightly longer and gelled upwards- and dark skin, skin the same shade as his and one was covered in more scars than the other. One was wearing an old denim jacket covered with iron-on patches and a pair of running shoes with neon green laces while the other one wore ripped up jeans and fake gold rings on his fingers. Both looked at Cisco with bright brown eyes and open faces full of hope and excitement. Both were faces Cisco knew too well. “No.” He whispered, backing away.

The taller one stood slowly from the bed, awe flitting across his face like lightning in the dark. “ _Francisco_.” He breathed.

Before Cisco could gasp for any more breath and stumble backwards, a hand latched onto his shoulder, keeping him pinned to the spot. “Cisco, you’re about to have a panic attack. I need you to breathe slowly for me.”

Dimly Cisco knew it was Caitlin but the words didn’t register. All he could see, all he could hear was the knock of officers at the door, the heartbroken sobs of his mother from where he stood at the top of the stairs, the echoing of his footsteps as he ran through the town screaming his brother’s name, the squeal of car tires losing control across asphalt, the deafening crash of two cars colliding, the beeping of a life support machine suddenly going silent-

Someone was calling his name but there was ringing in his ears and a buzzing in his head. The shorter one had stood up now, was coming towards Cisco with concern on his face and his hand outstretched. No words could escape Cisco’s lips as he gasped like a fish out of water, desperate to fill his lungs with something other than dread.

A blue shimmering portal of vibrational energy opened up behind him and Cisco pushed past his friends and their human barricade of fake comfort and into the breach before anyone else could call his name or any more ghosts from his past could come back to haunt him.

He landed back at the cemetery- the only place his mind could access- and gasped for the cool air the cemetery provided. The indents from his legs were still on the ground from where he sat- the flower stem broken from where he had picked it. He reached up and gently touched it with a finger and it waved to him from behind his ear. “This can’t be happening.” Cisco whimpered, curling his arms around himself as if shielding himself from the wind. “This isn’t real.”

Nobody came looking for him so either they understood that he needed space or Barry really didn’t know where to look. After a while- too long- Cisco opened his eyes and looked at the graves. The names were still the same. The dates were still the same. The piano notes on Dante’s and the football team’s logo still on Armando’s. Everything was the same. He had to go home, he needed to sleep it off and go into work the next morning and have Caitlin treat him for nightmares and hallucinations.

His phone was buzzing again, loud and incessant. The bright, smiling face of Caitlin that always calmed his nerves on his roughest moments greeted him when he pulled it out of his pocket. Cisco ignored it.

As soon as the breach took him home, Cisco ran to his room and buried himself under the coverers and cried into his pillow, hoping morning would bring with it a new day that was back to normal again.

The Cortex was empty when he entered it the next morning- almost an identical recurrence of the day before- wearing the same clothes he fell asleep in, hair barely brushed back behind his ears. He hadn’t stopped to get a coffee at Jitters and he defiantly hadn’t felt well enough to stomach any breakfast before he’d left.

Slowly, he crept towards his workroom, calling out, “If anyone is in here that I don’t want to be I hope you’re ready to be breached to another Earth because today is not one of the days that I’m in a ‘use my stuff without asking’ kind of mood.” as he entered the door.

Cisco was used to dodging punches and attacks from large meta-humans but he was out of practice dodging tackles from large, seasoned quarterbacks who had been playing since they were old enough to walk. His head hit the back wall and a body slammed hard into his as he landed on the floor in a pile of tangled limbs. He heard a click and when he looked down, a pair of handcuff were clasped around his hands and he glared at the trail of yellow lightning that darted off as Wally sprinted out of range of Cisco's anger. “For the love of- guys! I just want to get to work, I have heaps of things to do today.”

A hand reached up and roughly ruffled his hair. “Take a breather little brother, you deserve a rest.” Cisco looked up and balked as Armando smiled down at him, the cocky grin that told Cisco trouble was coming etched permanently into his features.

“I’m not doing this again.” Cisco squeezed his eyes so tightly shut that it hurt. “I don’t know who you are but I’m not in the mood for dealing with any more meta’s who can change shape.”

“Cisco it’s us!” Was Dante’s annoyed shout. “Stop being so stubborn.”

“Stubborn?” Cisco asked, voice low, as he shoved Armando off of him. No- not Armando. Not Dante. They were dead. “My brothers are dead. I visit their tombstones every year. I have their pictures hung up in my apartment. I have the death certificate and the missing persons framed on my dresser. You’re not my brothers because my brothers are _dead_.” The last word was said with more emotion than he’s intended but he stood up and walked away regardless.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Dante ran up to Cisco and grabbed his elbow, pulling him around. Armando sat cross-legged on the ground, watching them with curious eyes. “Where are you going?”

Scowling, Cisco waved his bound hands in his brothers face. “To get these off. I have things to do and I would rather spend the day doing those than being here.”

“Cisco, wait.” Reluctantly, Cisco stopped walking away and turned back to Armando, now hefting himself off of the floor. “You think… we’re dead?”

“I don’t think, I know,” Cisco said, taking a step backwards and dodging when Dante reached out for him. “No touchy. You’re dead. I can prove it. I can breach you to your graves right now.”

A perplexed look crossed the faces of both boys and he watched as Barry quietly stuck his head out from the sides of the door to his workroom. “Breach… graves… proof… Cisco, what are you talking about?” Armando was touching him now, skin as warm as it always was and Cisco felt his breath hitch. “Right. Ok. I think… right. Why don’t we all step inside, you let us explain our version of events and then you can decide whether or not you believe us. Alright?”

Glancing at the doorway, Cisco saw Barry give a quick thumbs up before his head disappeared back into the workroom. With a sigh, Cisco nodded, giving in to Armando’s warm touch and Dante’s silent encouragement. He wasn’t used to this- he wasn’t used to any of this. Dante being kind without any sort of reason? Armando… touching him? It had been too long- Cisco had almost forgotten what a touch from his oldest brother felt like.

As Cisco made his way into his workroom, he felt a hand pat his shoulder and Caitlin’s voice whisper to him from the other side. “I didn’t know you had a brother older than Dante.”

“He went missing years ago.” He explained, just as quietly. “We thought he was dead.” Louder he asked. “If I promise not to breach out of here, can you take the cuffs off?” the metal dropped off of his arms and hit the floor with a _clank!_

Wearily, Cisco sat down on the desk chair and spun around to fully to face the group of eager faces before him. Wally was rocking on the balls of his feet. Caitlin was biting her lips. Harry was looking back and forth between Cisco and his brothers. Joe was intently watching Cisco's face. Barry's foot was rapidly tapping on the floor and his hand was trapped between Iris's as she squeezed it with both of her own. Nervous gestures that Cisco had long ago identified. "Well...?"  
  
"Right," Armando let out a breath and crouched down before Cisco, placing his hands on Cisco's legs. A gesture he would do when they were little and Armando had to carefully explain to Cisco why he'd been put in time-out. Against his better judgement, Cisco was beginning to believe more and more that they really _were_ his brothers and they hadn't even said anything yet. "This is a little tricky to explain."  
  
Cisco frowned. "Then what's the whole point of this?" Behind Armando, Dante rolled his eyes so hard that for a moment only the whites of his cornea were visible and let out a frustrated sort of grunting sigh that Cisco knew was only reserved for him. Cisco stuck his tongue out at him.  
  
As if he was used to it, Armando easily ignored them both. “I don't know what it was like for Dante but for me, it was... nothing, for a while. Like I was suspended between space and time. Don't look at me like that, I know it sounds corny but that’s what it was like. I don't really know how long I was there for. Sometimes it felt like years, sometimes days, sometimes hours, sometimes minutes. I didn't really... know who I was for a time. But then Dante came-" he pointed his chin at the brother in question and Dante nodded in affirmation. "-and I wasn't so lonely anymore and I started to remember."  
  
Sighing heavily, Cisco ran his hands down his face in both frustration and exhaustion. "Right, ok. You won't understand this, but if I was anybody else on the planet that would make no sense, but it does. No- not because I'm super-duper smart and amazing Caitlin but _thank you_ for the compliment." Caitlin shut her mouth with a _snap_ and a grin. "My powers... play a part in... what happened, I think. But how did you get here?"  
  
While Cisco's brothers floundered with the concept that their little brother had _powers_ , Barry shook his head. "There was a flash of blue light in the cortex and when we got there we watched it close." He shrugged.  
  
"Watch _what_ close?" Cisco asked, exasperated.   
  
"That's just the thing." Iris interrupted before Barry could make it any more cryptic. "We don't really know for sure, not without you here to confirm it. But... we have a hunch."  
  
Digging his nails into the skin of his face, Cisco growled in irritation. "Confirm _what_? A hunch about _what_?"  
  
"Cisco," Caitlin's gentle voice cut through the rest of the sound and all eyes turned to her as she approached Cisco and put her hands lightly on his shoulder. "We think it was a breach."  
  
For a moment, Cisco thought he'd misheard. Thought that maybe his desperate plans to escape the situation were muddling words in his head. “B-breach?” he asked, leaning closer as if that would cure his hearing. “A breach? Really? Here? Why? Who summoned it? I sure as hell didn’t. I wasn’t even here!”

“Uh, we think you… might have.” Wally winced when Cisco snapped his head up to glare at him. “I mean, it looked exactly like yours!”

“They all look the same!” Cisco argued. “All breaches look identical!”

Caitlin put a comforting hand on his shoulder as Joe turned to glare at Wally. “Your's are different. They carry a different vibrational signature that is purely specific to you. I should know- I’ve spent hours of my life that I can never get back scanning them and testing them for traits for this very reason.”

To Cisco, it felt like the floor was opening out beneath him, hairline fractures splintering across the glass bottom of a boat like glistening spider webs. He leaned heavily against the chair and ran a shaking hand through his hair. “You’re telling me that I can summon the dead through a breach, that I didn’t even create with my own will and that I just so happened to pull through my two dead brothers out of all the dead people in there?”

“Hey, I’m not telling you how it works, I’m just telling you that you did it,” Caitlin said, sympathy lacing her words. “Where were you when this happened? Maybe then we can… find a connection?” It looked more like she was trying to convince herself than anyone else.

“I was at the cemetery,” Cisco admitted quietly and tried not to jerk at how the whole room went stiff. He glanced up and made eye contact with his brothers, now leaning up against the back wall beside Wally. “Visiting you.”

Dante looked like he was about to step forward and shove his fist through Cisco's face but Armando put out his arm out before Dante could move as if expecting the action. "Cisco, listen. Don't be stupid. Do we look like we're dead to you? To any of you?"  
  
"Wait." Armando was watching Cisco intently. "Do you know what happened to us? Do you know why we were there?"  
  
"I mean, I don't know why you were there..." he trailed off and looked to the others for reassurance, who all gave overeager nods. "Dante, you may not remember what happened to you but you _have_ to remember what happened to Mando."  
  
Nodding solemnly, Dante glanced at their older brother. "He went missing when we were younger and the police were never able to find him." Armando's shoulders tightened. "We built him a grave so family and friends had somewhere to say goodbye."  
  
"Exactly. I don't know how he ended up where you were but you've been missing for years." Cisco turned away from Armando's grief-stricken face and to Dante's curious one. "You were in a car crash with a drunk driver. You can't tell me you weren't dead because I was sitting by your bedside and watched the heart monitor flat line."  
  
Both brothers went quiet as Cisco squirmed in his seat. Finally, Armando spoke with his eyes downturned to his lap. The whole room seemed to hold their breath. "I got a call by coach Johnson telling me that we had a session of extra training before the big game on the weekend. He did that sometimes; it wasn't a strange thing. I told mum where I was going and I took the ute to the ground... when I got there all the lights were off and something hit me from behind and the next thing I knew... everything was cold and empty and I was alone."  
  
"We were told that you'd run away," Cisco remembered, voice quiet as he saw in his mind’s eye a female officer wrap her arms around his sobbing mother who'd collapsed on the ground with her head in her hands and her elbows on the welcome mat. "They said you took the ute to the grounds as a distraction and ran off with some girl. I knew they were lying. You would never do something like that to us."  
  
Eyes wide, Armando was shaking his head frantically. "No, no- I would never- I didn't know..."  
  
"Hey, slow down. Easy." Dante rested a hand gently on his brother’s arm and Armando gripped it like a lifeline. "Mando, calm down. We never blamed you. If you had run off with a chick, we would have been happy for you- we know what mum and dad are like. The problem we had with it was that we knew it wasn't true."  
  
Cisco snorted. "That was _my_ problem with it. _Your_ problem was that he didn't take us with him." Dante glared at him and Cisco smirked back until Joe got between them.   
  
"Why didn't you tell any of us this?" Joe asked Cisco and frowned when Cisco only shrugged. "Missing persons’ case? You do know that I'm a cop, right? Hell, we didn't even know you had another brother until we had to look up your family history to make sure they weren't lying."

“Nobody knew,” Dante explained, rubbing Armando’s back. “We kept it secret- made a pact to never tell a soul.”

“Who would believe two kids who had their big brother run away that he didn’t actually run away?” Cisco agreed. “There’d be no point.”

Joe rubbed the back of his head and sighed. “I remember that story though. It was when Barry and Iris were still little- they both contracted the measles and they sent another squad instead so I could go home.”

Armando took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “I am… so sorry. For leaving you.”

Rolling his eyes, Dante hit him on the back of the head and Armando narrowed his eyes at him. “Don’t be stupid. You’re here now, that’s what matters. We knew you would come back eventually and hey look! You did. Don’t beat yourself up for something that happened ages ago.”

Smiling slightly, Armando pulled Dante’s head against his shoulder. “Good advice? Coming from you? Now I know I’ve died and gone to heaven.” He chuckled at Dante’s grumble. “Anyhow- I think we should go home. Get some sleep.”

“You shouldn’t be going anywhere right now,” Caitlin argued, stepping between them and the door. “Not until I finish monitoring you at least. We have no idea where you came from yet- that place could have had damaging effects on you. You can stay in the same guest room as last night until I'm finished.”

Armando accepted Caitlin offer with a nod and pulled Dante up with him. “Thanks again for all this.” He said before they both turned and walked out the door. The workroom was quiet save for the beeping of Cisco’s computers, his heavy breathing and Barry’s foot tapping anxiously on the floor.

Harry let out a stilted breath and relaxed against one of the tables pushed against the wall. “Well Ramon, next time you have guests over who just so happen to be deceased relatives I do hope you let us know.” He looked Cisco in the eyes and suddenly every feature of his face softened as he watched Cisco blink away tears before they could fall. “Do you think it’s them?” Cisco nodded. “Then go. Go talk with them- be with your brothers again. Who knows how long you’ll have them for this time.”

After a reassuring nod from Caitlin, Cisco pushed away from the table and darted out the door calling out to them for a split second before he collided with them in the middle of the hallway and broke down sobbing. Before he could blink, two pairs of arms wrapped around his shaking body and held him close. Vaguely, Cisco could hear himself speaking, begging but it wasn’t until Armando gasped painfully and pressed a kiss into his hair that he’d realised what he said.

_“Please. Please don’t leave me alone again.”_

Not for the first or last time that night, Cisco cried until his lungs were sore from heaving and his eyes burned from all the tears that he’d been holding back for years suddenly spilling out like a glass too full- except this time, he was held in the arms of those he needed most.

**Author's Note:**

> If I missed any important tags please let me know so I can fix it x


End file.
